


A Living Seed

by KaelsMiscellany



Category: Bizenghast, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU after Season 4, Banshees, F/M, Future Fic, Ghosts, Multi, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaelsMiscellany/pseuds/KaelsMiscellany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something inside Lydia's heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Living Seed

**Author's Note:**

> So I've actually been sitting on this fic for a while, but have held back on posting because it's an...odd duck. But I've finally decided screw it.
> 
> If you've never heard of/read Bizenghast you should be able to read this just find and only have a few questions. Although it's a series I highly recommend, it's got some great gothic atmostphere and an excellent story. (if you have read Bizenghast then I'm ignoring Riddle Road since I haven't finished reading it myself)

There's something inside Lydia's heart. It writhes and wriggles and sometimes it feels like it's about to crawl up her throat and out her mouth **—** always when she screams. When she was a little girl she wanted it gone, now...

If she's going to be completely honest she's always seen ghosts. Always found them terrifying, always tried to avoid them. She always said 'no' to anything happening in the preserve, the worst ghosts wandered the preserve, especially after the Hale fire.

She's gone so long not mentioning the ghosts that she doesn't even think she could if she wanted to. So she doesn't tell Stiles about the shadow of his mother that follows him sometimes, the rest of the time she thinks is with his father. She doesn't tell Scott that, for a few days, Allison trailed after him like smoke—but Allison’s at the Nemeton now. Or anyone else who's haunted like that. Derek and Peter are the worst: the dead follow them like a cloud of smog. She doesn't try to outright avoid them, but that many ghosts fills her head with static and she can't _focus_ on anything.

Lydia doesn't speak of them because she shouldn't, because it's cruel to everyone, because she used to be scared of ghosts. She isn't now, thanks to Peter, but now she's doubly afraid to speak of hauntings because she knows now how it feels to be aware of what's following you.

From time to time the thing inside her takes over completely, more now than it used to since Peter attacked her. And she always finds herself waking up somewhere else; seemingly about half the time she finds herself somewhere else with _Peter_ , him just as confused as she. She thinks it's one of the reasons her dad left, her mom only sighs now with every phone call. Those are the times when she hates it most, she just wants to be _normal_ , makes her want to take a knife and cut herself open so she can dig it out.

Her screams hurt people now; she discovers this when she screams and even _Stiles_ covers his ears and cowers. It scares the bad guy away though, small blessings. When her scream dies down Scott approaches. “Are you alright Lydia?”

Not the question she expected, but the question she finds she needs. “I...I don't know.” The half of her life she's kept hidden spills out, but even then not the ghosts that haunt.

-

Time passes, they all grow in various ways. People come, people go, couples break, couples form. Pack meetings are just as likely to be broken now by screaming children as they are crises.

Now, she finds herself awaking, standing over Stiles and Derek, both fast asleep. One day, a year or so ago, Stiles' mom smiled, and left.

But still Derek has his pall, his dead clawing, reaching for the scraps of life they can steal from him; they came out of the Preserve when he came to Beacon Hills, clinging to him like a demented life preserver. No more.

Stepping forward she touches the first, charred flesh vanishes and a woman sighs in relief. Another, and another, and another, until all the Hales are a peace...well...

Leaving the two of them to their dreams she wanders her way through the streets to Peter. This time she needs no fugue state to get her in, she has a key.

Standing over Peter isn't like standing Stiles and Derek, he doesn't instill the same emotions, there’s affection, fondness, but also conflicting senses of _‘mine’_ and _‘wrong’_ ; after all he was dead for over a month, he should have _stayed_ dead, but when he possessed her she also changed him, turned him into another test of the Host, a living being containing shards of a Guildsman.

She tears her gaze away, otherwise she's liable to crawl into bed with him **—** it wouldn't be the first time, she might be Mrs. Lydia Parrish, but Peter wanders in and out of their bed as he pleases **—** and sleep, and focuses on Laura, and the barely noticeable girl behind her.

Somehow Laura's two halves manage to stay mostly together as she moves. Peter shifts restlessly, a familiar precursor to nightmares. “You need to leave.” She would whisper, but she knows that not even a scream will wake Peter right now.

Laura shakes her head, reaching out to touch Peter, her torso shifts at the action setting her legs a little further back than the rest of her.

“Stop.” Lydia infuses the word with power; Stiles likes to call it her Jedi mind-trick since it now works on weak-willed living as well, but for the dead there's no choice but to obey. Lydia reaches out too and like that Laura moves on. The young girl, Lydia's age when she stepped into this crazy world, steps forward and Lydia hopes she doesn't put up a fight. The girl holds out a hand. “Please.”

Lydia jerks and their hands brush. The girl disappears and leaves Lydia wondering how she managed to speak.

She sighs, something to think over another day, and the tension in her neck she hadn't even noticed drains away. Lydia begins undressing, and once she's down to her underwear crawls into Peter's bed; curling herself around him, running a hand comfortingly over his brow and humming nonsense, soothing his nightmare away.

Soon she drifts off into sleep herself. She dreams of the Nemeton, of Allison, and a voice telling her she did well.

-

Lydia knows her children see ghosts, though there are fewer now in Beacon Hills than when she was their ages thanks to her still growing powers, because of how they sometimes act and speak **—** and because she just straight up asked them. George chatters blithely on about people his friends can't see; Lucy **—** Peter's daughter through and through **—** will even _talk_ to them, not that they talk back; even Lucas at two sometimes makes grabbing and waving motions at them.

Jordan, her husband, hellhound, Sentinel, the man she knows would walk through hell to keep her, their children, and the Vault safe—and who's open mind extended to more than just the supernatural she'd discovered. The man who could hunt down ghosts even better than her sometimes, and guarded them well. “Are all the kids going to take after you?” He says it with a fond smile, like it’s not a bad thing, but he’s just curious.

She always shrugs, thanks to Peter's research she knows the last banshee lived over 500 years ago, Lydia's her last direct, from the female line, decedent; the almost other **—** a cousin Lydia hadn't even known she'd had **—** died a few years ago. So it's not like she has much in the way of relevant data when it comes to banshees.

-

Stronger now, and more experienced, Lydia makes more and more forays into the preserve, Jordan and Peter accompanying. Sometimes they bring George, sixteen's a good age to learn the family trade as it were, but more often than not she leaves him at home. Most of the ghosts are too dangerous, he might be a banshee like her—possibly—but that didn’t make him part of the Guild; he was just her son.

This time she went alone.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ . She’s too valuable to go off on her own like this, she _knows_ that. But she’s also still human, with stupid human impulses. She bites back a grunt of pain as she gets tossed back; and Lydia finds herself wondering if she may have stumbled across the most dangerous ghost too soon.

Jennifer Blake touches the Nemeton and begins to glow again.

Lydia gives a banshee scream, that's _her_ tree, her Vault, and this, this...Unbearable has no fucking right to use and abuse it, Jennifer only flinches though.

Hopefully if she can touch Jennifer long enough she can at the very least break her and force her on. But Jennifer seems to know that and has kept her distance. She needs a weapon...something she can use against her.

Another lightning bolt flies Lydia's way, this time she manages to scramble out of the way. Fumbling hands skitter across something smooth, instinctively a hand returns and latches onto it. Yanking it in front of her as yet more lightning heads towards her.

Instead of hitting her the lightning strikes the Nemeton root **—** staff? **—** she's holding, her teeth rattle a little but otherwise she's fine. _How?_

“You think you can hurt me with a twig?”

A little shakily Lydia stands. “At the very least I can beat the glitchiness out of you, _Julia_.”

Jennifer snarls and bears towards her, arms outstretched.

 _Finally_. Somehow she recalls, even though she's never seen this thing in her life before, that it's not a staff it's more like a wooden pry bar, and at the base of it...Lydia raises it and Jennifer unthinkingly impales herself on the spike. Lydia's grin is not a nice one. “Gotcha.”

Jennifer squirms, but can't free herself. Lydia reaches out and sinks her nails and fingers into Jennifer's throat. A minute, or at least that's what it feels like, later Lydia yanks her pry bar out **—** otherwise she knows Jennifer might come back...again **—** and gives a grunt of satisfaction as the ground beneath Jennifer opens up and starts pulling her down. Lydia lets go and steps away, leaning against the pry bar to keep herself upright.

She hobbles over to the askew stump of the Nemeton and sits down. Moments later she feels better already and she can feel the Nemeton shaking off Jennifer's influence. Through the Nemeton she can feel Allison, waiting for more ghosts, already an excellent Guildswoman, ready to lead the others once everything’s truly been settled; and just barely she can feel Scott and Stiles through the tree too **—** she wonders if they even remember the contracts they made? what they’ll become when they die. Hopefully by then she won't be needed like this and she can _sleep_. Fuck that sounds fantastic right now.

With a groan she stands, she can't fall asleep here or she'll sleep forever, and begins the long walk back to her car and home. To the men and children who love her and keep her anchored to this world.

The seed inside her chest thrums.


End file.
